


I Wouldn't Run From You Tonight

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Community: Pilots Presents, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara and Lee get stranded at the Tomb of Athena.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wouldn't Run From You Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to RDM, David Eick, Sci-Fi, NBC Universal and their various subsidiaries. Title from a song by Stephen Speaks, which I also had nothing to do with.  
> 

They're supposed to be out of here already.  The mission is simple enough: record the constellations above each ancient colony, take pictures of the way home, then get the hell out and make the rendezvous at camp. That's when the Centurions show up, and suddenly Kara finds herself outgunned and outmaneuvered, trapped with Lee in a tomb that she's afraid is about to have two new occupants if they don't come up with something, and fast.  

They duck into the tomb, and Lee watches the door while she radios the camp. "Starbuck here," she gasps. "We're under attack. Repeat, we are under attack. "

There's a crackle, then Bill's voice.  "We're under fire here too, Starbuck. Can you make the rendezvous?"

She glances at Lee, hoping for some good news, but he just shakes his head, and she closes her eyes and grips the radio tighter. "Negative, sir. We're surrounded. We've got no exit strategy here."

The silence of the next few minutes is overwhelming. There's noise out there, she's sure, but right now she can't even hear the ragged pull of her own breath, she just hears the silence.

"Sir?"

"Hang tight, Starbuck, we'll come to you. May be awhile," Bill says, and the sound of heavy gunfire crackles through the radio just as a loud blast echoes just outside the door of the Tomb.

Lee backs further into the room as Kara grabs the Arrow and slaps it into position, the heavy door of the Tomb swinging shut and plunging the two of them into darkness.

"I hope that holds them off," Lee says, but she can see that he's worried, and after a minute he reaches over and grabs the radio from her, frantically adjusting the controls when there's nothing but static. Kara lets him freak out for a minute before she starts to laugh, and he glares at her, the angry crease between his eyes visible even in the starlight.

"Lee," she drawls, rolling her eyes, "we're on Earth, remember?"

"It can't really be Earth," Lee says, shaking his head, but even as he protests the impossibility of their situation, the peaceful quiet of the field, the absence of the Cylons, of gunfire, of their imminent demise, tells a different story. "Can it?"

"Hey, we're not dead," Kara jokes. "That's something."

"If we're really on Earth, then why can't we just all get to Earth this way?"

Kara shrugs, then notices a rock on the ground by her foot. She picks it up and lobs it past one of the standing stones, and they both hear a dull thud in the distance. "Sounds like there's a wall there. Guess we have to do this the hard way."

"Isn't that always the truth," he replies, and their eyes meet for only a moment before she finds that she needs to be very, very distracted by pulling a camera and a data pack out of her bag, but even a moment is more than enough for that old familiar tension to come creeping back. She wonders if he can still feel the sting of her fist on his face.

"Too bad there's not one of these things for Caprica," she mumbles.

"If you want to talk about it," he starts to say, and she cuts him off with a wave of her hand.

"Talking doesn't make anything better," she says firmly, pulling the camera up in front of her face like a shield. "Besides," she mutters as she snaps a picture of the constellation hovering above the stone for Aries, "you'd probably just tell me you love me again." She's half-hoping he doesn't hear her, but the truth is that she's half-hoping he _does_ , because if there's one thing she could actually use right now, it's a good fight, something to take her mind off the situation they're in, keep her from realizing just how frakked they how and how little she can do about it.

Kara hears him draw a quick breath, hears the frustration in the sigh that comes after it, and knows without even turning around that he's crossing his arms over his chest and setting his jaw in that trademark stubborn Adama family expression.

"I'm sorry I ever said anything," he grumbles, shuffling over to her. "Like I said earlier. I was just being a friend, Kara."

"No takebacks, I told you," she teases, so intent on taking pictures that she doesn't notice the shift in his expression until it's too late.

"Fine," he says, and when she steals a look at him, she can see that he's wearing his patented Lee Adama face of extra-special determination. "Who said I _was_ taking it back, Kara?"

"You know what? Forget it," she says, hoping she can maneuver a way out of this one, wondering desperately if there's any crazy-ass stunt she can pull right now to make Lee Adama leave the past alone, let her sort out of her goddamn feelings her own way if she wants to and when she wants to. At this particular moment, she thinks that she hates him as much as she loves him, if she loves him, which she's not admitting, because that's a quick and easy way to get rid of people she cares about, and she's got enough on her conscience.

"What, you afraid?"

"Frak no," she swears, putting a little extra effort into it, like if she believes the lie herself, it'll be true.  

"That's right, ladies and gentlemen of Earth," Lee shouts sarcastically, in a pretty good imitation of those commercials she used to see on Caprica  when it was beyond late and she couldn't sleep. "Tonight and tonight only! Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace, baddest badass of the Colonial Fleet, the universe's greatest frakking Viper pilot, is afraid of a little old conversation."

It had not occurred to her that Lee might be spoiling for a fight every bit as much as she is, but it looks like he is. She realizes too late that she should never have started this, because Lee's got that look on his face that tells her he's not letting this go, and she's got nowhere left to run. She may love a fight, and she may love a challenge, hell, she may even love Lee, but she wants to want this on her terms, not on anyone else's: not Lee's, not the gods, not anyone's but hers, and it pisses her off that right here, right now, she doesn't have another choice.

"You need to shut the frak up, Apollo," she insists, "unless you want to tell our lovely audience about the time you tried to frak your only brother's fiancee with him in the next frakking room. How's that for _conversation_ , Apollo? You want to drag all our old skeletons out of the closet, fine. Let's dance."

"Fine," he growls.

"You think I cheated on Zak?"

"What? I didn't--"

"You didn't what? You didn't bring it up after Colonial Day? Because you frakking did, Lee, so let's have it."

"I don't know," he shouts. "I just know what I saw."

"I punched you in the frakking mouth because you didn't have any idea what you were talking about, you know that? I know you're _Apollo_ , and you're so used to being right about everything all the frakking time that you think you could make a career out of it, but really, Golden Boy, are _sure_ you know what that was, with the Major?"

He looks away. "I don't care what it was," he says, staring at some fixed point above Taurus. "You were right, let's not do this."

"Oh, it's too frakking late for that," she growls, making him look at her. "This probably doesn't come as a shock to you, Apollo, but your brother was twice the man you are."  

"Kara," Lee snaps, like it's supposed to be some kind of warning, but she pushes ahead, because she can't stop, not now, not when she's finally started to let him have some of the pain and the guilt and the fear that she's been collecting since Zak died. She figures if he's not going to leave it alone then he can frakking have some of it, because the gods know she's had enough misery to share for too many years now, and if he wants to keep saying bullshit things about loving her, well, _that's what he gets_ , just like Zak, just like Sam, just like anybody else who tries. He can love her if he wants to. She's not about to make it easy for him.

"Zak didn't _overthink_ things, Lee. He just lived. So when some hot new officer walked into our lives, yeah, we'd play around. It wasn't like he didn't know, Lee, we both did it. We liked it. It was a game, and it was _ours_ , mine and Zak's, and it had nothing to frakking do with you or anybody else. _It was fun._ If you can even remember what that feels like."

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh come on, Lee, you got so pissed at me for screwing the Vice Prez on Colonial Day that you had a frakking temper tantrum in front of the whole crew. Excuse me if I think you may have forgotten what fun feels like."

"I wanted it to be me," he roars, and that's about the last thing she was expecting him to say. It startles her enough that she takes a step back, just to give herself the space to deal with it. "It doesn't make it right, but _godsdammmit_ , Kara, I wanted it to be me, or I wanted to be him, frak, I don't know, and yeah, I love you, and I'm not taking it back, because I frakking meant it," he says, calmer now. He looks away and stares at the ground, digging in the soil with the tip of his combat boot like a little boy who just confessed he broke the cookie jar. "I meant it. So what the frak are we going to do about it?"

She doesn't want to talk about it anymore, and she's pretty damn sure that if she leaves it up to him then she'll have to, so she kisses him, and for once, he doesn't frakking argue.  It's not an answer and it sure as hell isn't a solution, but maybe if they can finally get through this, if they can get off that godsdamned table and leave the past where it frakking belongs, then maybe it'll finally be okay.

"This isn't gonna fix anything," he mumbles, but he doesn't stop her from taking off his pants. "You know that, right?

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it," she grins. "Besides, even if it doesn't, we get to be the first people in the Fleet to say we got laid on Earth, and that's bragging rights for at least the next decade, right?"

"You really are beyond insane," he laughs, and that's all she lets him say.


End file.
